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India, China, Brazil lead in planned pay increases: Survey

16 of 17 countries report increase budgets at or above 2013 levels

07/14/2014|hrreporter.com|Last Updated: 07/14/2014

India, China and Brazil averaged the highest 2014 total salary budget increases at 10.5 per cent, 8.2 per cent and 7.2 per cent, respectively, according to the WorldatWork 2014-2015 Salary Budget Survey.

These three countries have retained the largest increases since WorldatWork expanded its data collection to include countries outside the United States in 2012, and all are projecting similar salary increase budgets for 2015.

"Differences in planned pay increases between surveyed countries reflect the variance in economies and labour markets around the world," according to Alison Avalos, research manager for WorldatWork. "Countries that reported leading average pay increase budgets are not necessarily leading the market; undeveloped and developing countries, those experiencing a very tight labour market, and/or those subject to mandatory pay increases, for example, will generally report the highest average increases."

When looking comparatively at data from year-to-year, growth in budgets for pay increases reflects the degree of upward pressure on wages, she said. Since WorldatWork started gathering global data, the rate of growth for all countries has been limited, indicating there has been no major change in the degree of upward pressure on wages for any surveyed country.

This year, 16 of 17 countries reported 2014 salary increase budgets at or above 2013 levels. While India, China and Brazil showed large increases, several countries reported 2014 average total salary budget increases in the three per cent to 4.5 per cent range:

•Mexico (4.4 per cent)

•Singapore (4.3 per cent)

•Australia (3.7 per cent)

•Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and United States (three per cent).

The remaining surveyed countries were all below three per cent:

•Netherlands (2.9 per cent)

•Italy (2.8 per cent)

•France (2.7 per cent)

•Belgium (2.6 per cent)

•Japan (2.5 per cent)

•Spain (2.4 per cent)

•Switzerland (2.3 per cent).

WorldatWork includes zero-per cent responses in the analysis, unless otherwise noted, because a zero represents a decision not to budget for a program or employee category that exists in the responding organization.